


The Duck Factor

by Chococriskis, starkaryen



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Ducks and Dogs, Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, yes seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 03:57:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8386297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chococriskis/pseuds/Chococriskis, https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkaryen/pseuds/starkaryen
Summary: Will and Hannibal are out fishing when they witness something neither of them expected.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Malaper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Malaper/gifts).



> This is of course for you, Malaper. HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY!!
> 
> Fun fact: this fic is based on a real story that Chococriskis herself witnessed, and then when we were discussing it we, of course, applied to Hannigram (because, is there something that it's not Hannigram? The answer is no).
> 
> Also, thanks to Llewcie for being an amazing beta

Hannibal blew hot air into his hollowed out hands, warming up his palms a bit.

It was a late Autumn’s day, almost a Winter one, and as many clothes as they were wearing, Hannibal could feel the cold, and especially the humidity, creeping underneath the layers and sinking into his bones.

Hannibal rubbed his hands together and looked up at the man sitting beside him in a chair just like his. Will was staring at some point of the river’s shore, a frown on his brow and tension in his jaw. Hannibal knew he wasn’t looking at anything in particular; he was just staring into space, both hands around the handle of the rod. But maybe, and just maybe, Will was also slightly upset; and maybe, and just maybe, he had a reason to be. He had wanted to go fishing at the break of dawn. Hannibal, however, had persuaded Will to stay in bed a little while when they had awakened. Will’s complaints to ‘ _go soon_ ’ had ended when Hannibal’s mouth had reached the waistband of his boxers, and the ‘ _just a little while’_ argument Hannibal had used, bled into hours. Will had sighed while they had lunch, reluctantly saying that they could go the next day, but Hannibal had suggested to go today anyway. Will had warned him they wouldn’t catch much at that hour, but they had still gone. And so there they were, sitting there after two hours, having caught only a small fish and nothing else.

Hannibal studied Will’s features carefully, and he cleared his throat. However, he didn’t have the opportunity to speak before the man next to him commented in a low voice.

“Don’t you dare say a thing about my fishing skills.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. I was going to apologize, in fact.”

Will seemed surprised, but he didn’t turn to look at him.

“What for?”

“You wanted to come early and I … distracted you. And now catches are avoiding us. It’s natural that you’re upset,” It was a polite ‘us’ as Hannibal’s rod was completely abandoned. Today, he decided, wasn’t the day to ask for fishing lessons.

Will smiled faintly, eyes still fixed at some point of the calm waters.

“It wasn’t like I didn’t enjoy it, Hannibal. I was a willing accomplice.”

Hannibal chucked. “I would rather say instigator.”

Will’s eyebrows raised, a playful smile dancing in the corner of his lips. “So now I’m the one to blame?”

The former brilliant psychiatrist and now amateur fisherman observed their surroundings, watching the last autumn leaves swaying with the cool breeze. There was something fresh and almost sweet in the electrified air, so strong that it traveled through his nasal passages to his mouth, carrying the fragrance of ozone and wet ground along with it, providing him with an earthy taste. Hannibal’s senses were invaded with the smell of the leaves decomposing, the rotten trunks that now life systems populated, and the wet soil from the first rains. The river gave golden reflections thanks to the late afternoon sun and the silence of the scenery was only broken by the occasional quacking of the ducks. It was one of those days where nature seems to give its last vibrant aria before the quiet silence of Winter.

“There’s nothing to be blamed for. It’s lovely out here. It’s like something described by Chekhov.”

“I was thinking more of Robert Frost.”

“ _Two roads diverged in a wood, and I / I took the one less traveled by / And that has made all the difference._ ” Hannibal recited, solemnly, almost only for himself.

Will laughed.

“You can take the man from the grandiloquence but you cannot take the grandiloquence from the man.”

“You’re the one who suggested Mr. Frost, Will, and it certainly suits you.”

“It does?”

Hannibal remained silent for a moment.

“It suits your delight in the potential hazards of nature and the essential mystery of things. The resignation at the tragedy of life, and, in spite of that resignation, the inability to not be moved by beauty. And beauty can come from a quiet river or from an ice storm, in its inclemency and destructive power. In the encounter between unstable elements is where poetry occurs.”

This time, Will turned to look at him with something deep and inescapable in his eyes.

“I suppose it occurs. Poetry. And poetry isn’t often peaceful.”

Hannibal looked him in the eye and smiled back, feeling the corner of his eyes softening and wrinkling with the inevitable signs of age.

Hannibal opened his mouth to answer, and just then a bark echoed along the river. Will and Hannibal turned their heads at the same time to see a brown and gray-colored dog on the opposite bank of the river. Hannibal tilted his head, and he heard the chair beside him creaking as Will leaned slightly forwards. The dog didn’t have a collar on him, and he seemed a little malnourished, which led Hannibal to the simplest conclusion; it had been abandoned. The dog trotted along the shore, his paws splashing the water, walking from the right side of Will and Hannibal’s vision to the left, where he stopped for a moment, body tense and ears strained up… and then, he jumped in the water.

“Shit!” Will said to Hannibal’s left.

The moment the dog dove into the water, the paddling of ducks flew away with anguished quacks. Hannibal saw the green and brown birds flapping their wings quickly to get away from what had scared them, and then his attention returned to the sloshing sound in the water. Much to his surprise, the dog was not the only living creature still in the water; a single duck had remained. It was a Mallard male duck, brown and gray body and bright green head, and as the dog swam with difficulty towards him, the duck quacked and swam the opposite way.

Hannibal hadn’t noticed leaning forwards to the edge of the chair since the dog had appeared, until he was about to catch the duck. In the last moment, the bird flapped his wings and flew – but only to the right of the river, enough so he would be away from the dog. That pretty much ruled out the possibility of the duck being unable to fly, which would’ve explained why it had been the only one out of the group of more than ten ducks that hadn’t gone away the second the dog had jumped after them. That strategy was just a short-term solution, though, since the dog merely described a circle in the water and corrected his direction. The dog managed to get very close to the bird again, but once more, the duck spread his wings and propelled himself up and away from the dog’s grasp.

Will got up then, leaving the rod on the ground and turning to Hannibal.

“Do you think he got lost?”

“It looks like a brittany or a pointer, or a mix of both. Not castrated. The dog of a hunter.Most probably abandoned…” Hannibal said, knowing that Will was already aware of this.

Will walked to the bank of the river and whistled, trying to get his attention.

“Come here, boy!” he said, clapping his hands as he used to do with his pack of dogs.

Hannibal swallowed; this could be a problem. Even if everything had seemed to settle down in the past four months, the two of them now living a quiet life in a little town, they were fugitives, and fugitives certainly don’t have pets.

However, maybe that wouldn’t be a problem at all, as the creature didn’t seem to have any intention of coming out of the river, completely ignoring Will’s constant calls and whistles. He just kept swimming, chasing the duck that never let himself get caught but didn’t fly away either. He seemed to wait until the dog had almost caught him to fly some meters away and then waited again for the dog to come to him. The dynamic repeated over and over again for ten, twenty, thirty minutes, until the sun began to dip into the horizon.

“Fuck, Hannibal, it’s getting dark. What are we going to do?” Will seemed truly concerned by then, a hand messing with his already wild hair. “I could… I don’t know, go into the water and take him out.”

“Don’t be ridiculous Will. Even if you caught him the riverbed is muddy; you wouldn’t be able to get out of there”. Hannibal watched the dog, already panting heavily, wide eyes fixated on the duck, who flew away six or seven metres to the opposite direction and landed to swim in little circles. Waiting.

There was something there. Hannibal suspected it. Something profound and meaningful in the situation that he wasn’t fully grasping. Will waved a hand, obviously uneasy.

“Well, what then? It has been almost and hour and he’s not stopping. He’s going to drown if he keeps chasing that fucking duck.”

Hannibal's eyes widened then, his expression suddenly hit by a revelation.

“He doesn’t care...” he whispered in a neutral voice.

“Care about what?” Will asked, turning to look at him with a confused expression.

Hannibal swallowed slowly. “Drowning. He doesn’t care if he drowns. He only cares about reaching him.”

“Well, that’s not gonna happen so he has to stop eventually. That bird isn’t gonna stop flying away.”

“Why not?” Hannibal asked him, looking at Will with a slight frown and what he thought must’ve looked like a pout.

“What do you mean why not? Because a damn hunting dog is chasing him! It’s his prey!”

Hannibal stared at him, almost personally offended.

“You don’t know that...”

Will looked at him, stunned, and he huffed out. Hannibal directed his gaze back to the river, a determination in his eyes. He removed his jacket.

“I’m going to go get him.”

“Excuse me?” Will asked in a tone of disbelief.

“I’m going to…”

“I heard you the first time, you maniac. What happens with the mud? You just said...”

“I know what I said,” Hannibal pointed at him while crouching down and untying his shoes.

“You’re absolutely not entering this river. What you’re going to do is help me find some river stones to throw at that duck. If he gets scared he will get the fuck out of here.”

Hannibal raised his gaze and looked at him, a beast growling behind his eyes.

“Will, I love you but if you hit that duck, I will bite you.”

Will arched his eyebrows, unimpressed at the threat, and he opened his mouth to answer when something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye and he turned back to the river.

“Hannibal… he stopped.”

Hannibal stopped untying his left shoe to follow Will’s gaze, he stood up and observed, astonished. The duck and the dog were still swimming, but instead of doing it in the same direction, one chasing and the other one getting away, they were describing a sort of circle around each other, almost like a coordinate dance, as if they were performing a secret ritual. Then, as abruptly as they had started, they stopped. The duck gave the canine a last look and then flew away. Will, Hannibal and the dog looked at him until they couldn’t distinguish his form in the darkening sky. In that instant, the dog turned to the perplexed humans and swam to them, his paws trembling as he got out of the water, exhausted.

Hannibal didn’t hesitate for a second to go to him, wrapping the dog in his jacket and picking him up to cradle him in his arms. The dog rested his head on Hannibal’s shoulder, sighing loudly and looking strangely at peace.

“Come on Will, we’re going home.”

Will was staring at him with the strangest look in his eyes, amused and incredulous. Hannibal looked down at his own untied shoes, but he did not care at all about the image he must present of himself in that moment; a dirty and wet dog dripping river water onto his clothes, his hair probably tousled and a foolish smile that he could feel on his own lips. It was absurd, and yet when he looked up at Will again, he could swear that there was something soft in his expression, his lips parted and a fond smile that Hannibal still had to get used to finding in the man’s eyes.

Will then cleared his throat and finally reacted, turning to their chairs with all the fishing equipment they had brought.

“Okay, give me a minute to pick up everything. You’ll have to cook some rice and chicken for him today, and I’ll bathe him meanwhile. We’ll discuss what to do with him over dinner.”

Hannibal nodded and, when Will had picked everything up, they started walking towards the place where they had parked the car. When Will hurried up along the road, to leave their things and help him with the dog, Hannibal petted the dog’s head that in his mind was already theirs.

“Don’t worry,” he said in a low voice, making sure Will wouldn’t hear him. “I will bring you here tomorrow to see him again.”

**Author's Note:**

> We hope you like this half as much as the dog loves the duck, Malaper (and everyone!) :)


End file.
